4

On an antique shotgun I was told had Korean origin I found the following (what I presume are Hanja?) characters. Four out of five I believe I have correctly identified. One character I could not find in the dictionary.

However, my only resources are Chinese and I know almost nothing about Chinese characters' usage in Korea.

Side A:

[UNKNOWN CHARACTER] 製 特

Side B:

絞 筒

The unknown character is three stacked components in this basic form

-------
   人  
-------
   𠂇  
-------
   巾  
-------

Though, the bottom component might well be , there is quite a bit of tarnish obscuring it.

On Side A, the two characters that follow the unknown one seem to indicate "special manufacture".

One Side B, I get the translation "hang" or "twist" for character one, and "tube" for character two. To me, this might indicate the process of rifling, but I could not find any use of these characters on the Chinese character entry for rifling, and the barrel is old and I couldn't tell conclusively if it'd ever undergone that process.

Can someone help me translate these characters?*

† I'm also not certain the Korean origin of this piece, but that is what I was told.
* Please let me know if this might be a better fit for the Chinese language stack. I ask here with the idea that Korean usage of these characters might be idiomatic and more suitable for this sub. Thanks.

Edit

I was able to take some acceptable close up imagery:

Side A

Side B

5
  • Welcome to the site. Questions about Hanja seem to be fine on Chinese.SE - relevant meta advice is on korean.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/178/… and chinese.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1543/… - unfortunately as this is a Beta site, we can't migrate questions, so you would have to cross-post to Chinese.SE yourself if you want to. Of course as you say, there may be a uniquely Korean angle - a photo of the characters might be good! Nov 22, 2018 at 21:30
  • 2
    @topomorto Updated.
    – 1252748
    Nov 22, 2018 at 23:06
  • at least for the very first character the bottom component indeed does look like 中
    – user17915
    Nov 23, 2018 at 0:21
  • 1
    The construction looks like ⿱人布.
    – dROOOze
    Nov 23, 2018 at 0:36
  • Well, the existence of Arabic numerals would put this in a modern period (probably early 20th century, or late 19th at the latest). Considering the state of Korea during this era (in short: not good), I think it's pretty unlikely to be of Korean origin.
    – jick
    Nov 23, 2018 at 3:11

1 Answer 1

4

In the second photo,「絞筒」refers to the barrel of the gun.

In the first photo, the unknown character looks like「⿱人布」. I suggest that this is a slightly altered way of writing 「⿱𠂉布」, since the shape「人」is sometimes altered to「𠂉」at the top of characters:

enter image description here

At least in Chinese records, this is a variant of either「布」or「希」.

enter image description here


enter image description here

  1. If it's「布」, it would be a phonetic transcription character「포」, and is a proper noun marking the person, organisation, or location which manufactured (製) the gun.

  2. If it's「希」, it may also be a proper noun, but alternatively you may choose to interpret this as「드물다・稀」(rare, scarce).「希特製」means something like rare and uniquely made or special edition; its semantic connection to antique would be obvious in this case.


Just from the photos, there's nothing unique that suggests that this is Korean; as an antique, it could be Chinese, Japanese, Korean, or Vietnamese.


References:

6
  • Thanks! This sounds plausible. Have you got any ideas on the “Side B” writing?
    – 1252748
    Nov 23, 2018 at 1:12
  • @1252748 updated answer.
    – dROOOze
    Nov 23, 2018 at 1:20
  • Right, yeah I was pretty sure it refers to the barrel, but wondered what specifically it signifies.
    – 1252748
    Nov 23, 2018 at 1:21
  • @1252748 絞筒20...maybe the measurements of the gun barrel?
    – dROOOze
    Nov 23, 2018 at 1:24
  • I’ve confirmed that 20 does refer to the barrel’s measurement, but the first character, do you agree, is “hang” or “twist”? How do you think that could relate?
    – 1252748
    Nov 23, 2018 at 1:27

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service and acknowledge that you have read and understand our privacy policy and code of conduct.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.